A family moving to Phuket for a school is really choosing two things: the school, and a house it can do the run from twice a day. Our schools map set out what the seven international schools charge. This piece is about the other half of the bill: what a villa asks to rent in the districts around each campus, by bedroom count, on a twelve-month lease.
The short answer is that the villa market around the schools splits three ways. Kathu, Ko Kaeo and Chalong sit at ฿100,000 to ฿110,000 a month for a three-bedroom villa. Thalang, around UWC Thailand and Glenalmond, asks ฿130,000. Bang Tao, around HeadStart's Cherngtalay campus, asks ฿150,000, and the gap widens with every extra bedroom.
How we counted, and what we could not do
Every figure here comes from our own rental book as it stood on 19 September 2026: 1,855 long-term rentals with a published price, of which 1,554 are villas offered on a twelve-month minimum lease. Houses, townhouses and condos are left out, and so are the handful of villas let on shorter terms. The medians are asking rents, not agreed ones. Families negotiate, and the agreed rent can differ from the asking one.
We meant to filter the book by drive time to each gate. We cannot do that honestly. Our listings are placed on the map by district, not by house, so every villa in Bang Tao shares one set of coordinates, and a drive time calculated from them would be precision we do not have. Instead, each school is matched to the district its campus sits in, using the address on the school's own website. Any district with fewer than 15 villas at a given bedroom count is left out rather than published thin.
One more thing we deliberately ignored: a "next to the school" tag. It appears on 1,347 of our 1,855 rental listings, which tells you it describes almost nothing. A listing tag is not a location. Ask for the address and drive it at a quarter to eight.
The three-bedroom villa, district by district
Three bedrooms is the most common villa on the book, 745 of the 1,554, and the only bedroom count that clears our sample floor in every school district.
| District | Campus | Median | Middle half of listings | Villas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bang Tao | HeadStart Cherngtalay | ฿150,000 | ฿120,000–200,000 | 314 |
| Thalang | UWC Thailand, Glenalmond | ฿130,000 | ฿107,500–180,000 | 47 |
| Rawai | None; borders Chalong | ฿120,000 | ฿93,750–135,000 | 180 |
| Chalong | BCIS | ฿110,000 | ฿85,000–130,000 | 89 |
| Ko Kaeo | BISP | ฿105,000 | ฿90,000–142,500 | 28 |
| Kathu | KIS | ฿100,000 | ฿85,000–120,000 | 23 |
"Middle half" is the range between the 25th and 75th percentile, the band where most of a district's villas actually sit. It matters more than the median for anyone with a fixed budget. In Kathu the dearest quarter of three-bedroom villas starts at ฿120,000. In Bang Tao that is exactly where the cheapest quarter ends.
Three of the seven schools need a note on how they map:
- HeadStart Cherngtalay, UWC Thailand and Glenalmond all give Thalang as their district. Our book treats the Bang Tao and Cherng Talay coast as a district of its own, so HeadStart's Srisoonthorn Road campus is matched to Bang Tao. "Thalang" in these tables means the rest of the district as our book files it, including Thepkrasattri Road, where UWC and Glenalmond both sit, and the northern beaches.
- HeadStart's Chaofah City campus and Oak Meadow are both in Wichit. Wichit is not one of the districts our book uses. Phuket Town, the nearest that is, holds only 11 three-bedroom villas, too few for a median. Chalong, the neighbouring subdistrict to the south, is the nearest pool that clears the floor, so we use it for both schools and flag that it is a proxy.
- Rawai has no campus among the seven, but it borders Chalong and holds the second-largest villa count on our book, so it is in the table for comparison.
Why Ko Kaeo is not as cheap as it looked
Our schools map reported a ฿85,000 median for a three-bedroom home in Ko Kaeo, the lowest of any school district, and it was right for what it measured. It counted every three-bedroom home. Split today's 58 three-bedroom homes in Ko Kaeo by type and they fall into two halves of 29: houses at a median of ฿80,000, and villas at ฿110,000. Keep only the villas on a twelve-month lease and 28 remain, at a median of ฿105,000.
So the cheap rent near BISP is real, but it belongs to the district's houses. Only 8 of those 29 houses list a private pool, against all 29 villas, and their median built area is 216 sq m against 290. A family set on a villa should budget for Ko Kaeo at roughly Chalong's level, not below it. The district also has no two-bedroom villa on a twelve-month let on our book at all.
What a budget buys
A median describes the middle of the book. A family with a number in mind needs the other question answered: how much of the book is actually within reach?
| District | At or under ฿100,000 | At or under ฿150,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Kathu | 14 of 23 (61%) | 21 of 23 (91%) |
| Ko Kaeo | 14 of 28 (50%) | 27 of 28 (96%) |
| Chalong | 44 of 89 (49%) | 76 of 89 (85%) |
| Rawai | 78 of 180 (43%) | 151 of 180 (84%) |
| Thalang | 12 of 47 (26%) | 30 of 47 (64%) |
| Bang Tao | 52 of 314 (17%) | 160 of 314 (51%) |
Two readings, and both matter. In share terms, a ฿100,000 budget opens most of Kathu's three-bedroom villas and one in six of Bang Tao's. In absolute terms, Bang Tao still has 52 villas at that price, more than Kathu's entire three-bedroom book. The cheap end of an expensive district can offer more choice than the whole of a cheap one. It is smaller, though: Bang Tao's three-bedroom villas at or under ฿100,000 have a median built area of 250 sq m, against 300 sq m for the rest.
The fourth bedroom
Families with two children, a live-in helper or visiting grandparents look at four bedrooms, and this is where the districts pull apart.
| District | 2-bed | 3-bed | 4-bed | 5-bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bang Tao | ฿100,000 (47) | ฿150,000 (314) | ฿230,000 (198) | ฿340,000 (64) |
| Thalang | n/a (9) | ฿130,000 (47) | ฿150,000 (15) | n/a (3) |
| Rawai | ฿90,000 (44) | ฿120,000 (180) | ฿150,000 (87) | ฿160,000 (34) |
| Chalong | ฿68,000 (23) | ฿110,000 (89) | ฿150,000 (60) | n/a (11) |
| Ko Kaeo | n/a (0) | ฿105,000 (28) | ฿137,500 (22) | n/a (7) |
| Kathu | n/a (1) | ฿100,000 (23) | ฿125,000 (18) | n/a (8) |
Median monthly asking rent, villas on twelve-month lets, 19 September 2026. Listing counts in brackets; n/a where fewer than 15 villas.
Going from three bedrooms to four adds ฿80,000 a month in Bang Tao. Everywhere else the step is ฿20,000 to ฿40,000. Over a year, a four-bedroom villa in Bang Tao asks about ฿960,000 more than the same count in Chalong or Rawai, which is more than a year's primary tuition at any of the seven schools. Treat Thalang's four-bedroom figure with care: 15 listings is exactly our floor, and its middle half runs from ฿110,000 to ฿275,000.
What the listings say, and what they do not
Every one of the 681 three-bedroom villas in the six districts above lists a private pool, and all but two are let fully furnished. On the villa market, those are not features to shop for. They are the baseline. Two things do vary:
- A private garden is listed on 57% of Ko Kaeo's three-bedroom villas and 61% of Kathu's, against 73% to 77% in Rawai, Chalong and Thalang. With small children, that lawn is worth asking about before the viewing.
- Pets. Between 35% (Bang Tao) and 57% (Kathu) of three-bedroom villas are tagged pet-friendly. A missing tag does not mean a refusal, but a pet clause belongs in the lease in writing. Our guide to lease clauses covers how to word it.
Rent plus tuition, redone for villas
The schools map added twelve months of district rent to one primary-age child's published tuition. Here is the same sum on villa rents. Tuition figures are the 2026/27 schedules as published in that article.
| School | Primary tuition | 12 months, 3-bed villa | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| UWC Thailand | ฿753,500 | ฿1,560,000 (Thalang) | ฿2,313,500 |
| Glenalmond Phuket | ฿750,000 | ฿1,560,000 (Thalang) | ฿2,310,000 |
| HeadStart Cherngtalay | ฿480,000 | ฿1,800,000 (Bang Tao) | ฿2,280,000 |
| BISP | ฿767,700 | ฿1,260,000 (Ko Kaeo) | ฿2,027,700 |
| HeadStart Chaofah | ฿480,000 | ฿1,320,000 (Chalong proxy) | ฿1,800,000 |
| BCIS | ฿403,500 | ฿1,320,000 (Chalong) | ฿1,723,500 |
| Oak Meadow | ฿317,520 | ฿1,320,000 (Chalong proxy) | ฿1,637,520 |
| KIS | ฿365,000 | ฿1,200,000 (Kathu) | ฿1,565,000 |
The order does not change, but BISP moves closer to the top three. On all homes its total came to ฿1.79 million; on villas it is ฿2.03 million, because Ko Kaeo's cheap rent was mostly houses. In every row the house costs more than the school, and at KIS, BCIS, Oak Meadow and HeadStart Cherngtalay it costs more than three times as much.
Timing
Most of the book is available now: 1,274 of the 1,554 villas carry no future availability date. But 110 are listed as available from October 2026 or later, and 35 of those from June to September 2027. Some owners are already advertising for the next school year, so a family aiming at August 2027 can see part of that market today.
The book is also steady. Our snapshot of 3 September gave the same three-bedroom villa medians in every district above except Chalong, which has moved from ฿105,000 to ฿110,000. Two weeks is too short to call a trend. Our October market report will carry the first full month-on-month comparison.
What it means
- On a villa budget of about ฿100,000 a month, the realistic districts are Kathu (KIS), Ko Kaeo (BISP) and Chalong (BCIS, and the nearest pool to the two Wichit schools), where roughly half of the three-bedroom villas sit at or under that figure.
- For UWC Thailand or Glenalmond, Thalang villas start higher, and its thin four-bedroom book makes a larger house harder to find nearby.
- For HeadStart Cherngtalay, housing is the whole question. The school is mid-priced; the district is the most expensive on our book, and the fourth bedroom costs twice what it does elsewhere.
None of this tells you where to live. Plenty of families cross a district for the right house, and the drive at eight in the morning matters more than any median. What it does tell you is where a given budget goes furthest, and how much of the bill is the house.
Every villa in these figures is on our long-term rental book, which you can browse by district: Kathu, Ko Kaeo, Chalong, Thalang, Bang Tao and Rawai. For the schools themselves, see our reviews of BISP and UWC Thailand. Tell us the school, the year group, the bedroom count and the month you land, and we will send you what is available around that campus, including the houses that never reach the site.